Germany: Exposing the Chinese Communist Party’s Atrocities of Live Organ Harvesting during the Bayreuth Festival

During the internationally acclaimed Bayreuth Festival in Germany, where Wagner's operas are showcased each year, local Falun Gong practitioners took the opportunity to hold activities to expose the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) persecution. Every Saturday during the month-long festival in downtown Bayreuth, practitioners expose the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong, especially its atrocities of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

This year, the annual Wagner Opera Festival is being held from July 25 to August 29. Politicians and important figures attend the festival and opera fans across the world wait for years to buy a ticket. Media outlets cover the events during the festival. Arts groups and individuals go to Bayreuth to hold various workshops and performances.

People pause to read information about Falun Gong and the persecution.

Signing a petition to support Falun Gong practitioners’ efforts to end the persecution.

On July 28, 2012, practitioners set up a loudspeaker in front of Spital Church in downtown Bayreuth, to play the investigation report and witness statement of the CCP’s live organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Many visitors pass this site on their way to the shopping centre. A petition was provided for people to show their support for Falun Gong and to call for an end to the persecution. Many passers-by paused to listen to the broadcast in front of the informational poster boards. Many were shocked at the unprecedented persecution in China and signed the petition to support Falun Gong.

A number of people said that they would tell their friends who are surgeons and family members not go to China or collaborate with Chinese doctors, and not invite Chinese surgeons to get training in organ transplantation. Many passers-by learned that illegal organ trafficking is generally conducted by unlawful merchants or groups in other countries, but in China it is a government-mediated action, systemically operated by the armed police, judicial system, the army, hospitals and concentration camps. Many hospitals in China have gained huge incomes from organ transplantation surgeries.